Homesick
by martinskki
Summary: "You miss her like a flower misses the sun in the winter." The story of how Maya and Lucas float in and out of each other's lives, breaking each other for the better.


9 /

You chase her around the playground on the first day of school. She runs faster than anyone in the third grade, and her giggle is infectious. You watch her short blonde curls bounce as she sprints ahead of you, then she suddenly stops dead in her tracks, kicking up gravel as she spins around the face you. She's teasing you about how slow you are, and you've thought your mom was the prettiest girl in the world up until this moment.

10 /

She sits in front of you in Mrs. Baker's fourth grade class. Her hair is longer now, and you can tug on it from your seat. She always turns around and flicks you in the ear to make you stop, but she doesn't know that's the reason why you do it. You notice that while Mrs. Baker is trying to teach the class times tables, she's doodling along the edge of her worksheet, and you wonder if she's ever doodled your name.

11 /

You only ever see her on the playground, but she never runs anymore. She sits on the jungle gym with her brunette friends, and her blonde head sticks out like a sore thumb. You can't find any other girl worth chasing, and no matter how hard you try to enjoy running after Missy Bradford, it's not the same. None of them are as fast as she was. None of them make your legs as tired as she did. You wish she would run again.

12 /

You walk into your class on the first day of middle school, clutching the straps of your backpack to stop your hands from shaking, and she's sitting there. Your nerves melt away with every step you take towards her, and that year is full of private jokes and laughs so loud that Mr. Park has to put you two on opposite sides of the classroom, though that doesn't stop the silly faces and the passing of notes.

You have art class together too, and you soon realize that she takes it more serious than the other kids. While they're throwing paint and oil pastels at each other, she's using them to capture the scene on canvas, and you watch her in awe. This is better than the playground.

13 /

You don't see her at all at school, except for the occasional assembly where she'd jump over people in the bleachers just to claim the spot you've saved for her. You make a pact to meet at each other's houses twice a week to "study", though that usually meant baking cookies and making a mess out of both of your families' kitchens. You two are obsessed with baking this year; brownies, cookies, cakes, that one time you tried to make lemon bars and accidentally made sour candy instead.

Aside from the fact that Maya loves to eat any type of batter, no matter how many raw eggs were in it, you also learn that her mother normally isn't around to taste the brownies straight out of the oven, and you notice that she's okay with that; or at least she pretends to be. You always bring over extra eggs and milk with the baking supplies, and she doesn't say anything about it.

14 /

You kiss her at Missy Bradford's eighth grade graduation party. She's wearing that red dress she wore to the semi formal, and the way she's smiling reminds you of Christmas lights, and she's dancing to some stupid pop song. The way her hair is bouncing around her face reminds you of running after you in the third grade, and you're kissing her before you can convince yourself not to.

That summer is the best three months of your life. You're always with her. You hold her hand as you walk through Central Park, sipping the milkshake you buy for the two of you to share (because it's romantic, and this summer is about doing all of those stupid romantic things). You sit with her as she watches the light move along her apartment building, painting what she sees. You watch her turn gold every day at 5:30. These are the best memories you've ever made. You didn't think it was possible to be this happy.

15 /

You love her. So desperately, you love her, and you feel the pieces of your heart fall down to your stomach as you watch her love him. He's older, and taller, and more mysterious than you could ever even pretend to be. You're an open book as you listen to her openly flirt with him just a few seats away in the lunchroom. /He's a senior/, you think, /there's no way this will work out/. Your heart shatters even more at the thought of him breaking her heart, even though that's exactly what she did to you. As soon as summer was over, she ripped out the machinery in your chest that housed your feelings, and stomped on it until it was a part of the ground.

All she said was, "we're better as friends."

All you heard was, "I don't love you."

You throw yourself into baseball. You've always played, but this year you get serious, maybe even a little too serious. Every day after school, you practice batting. You picture the tall senior boy's head on the ball. It helps.

She doesn't come over anymore. She doesn't say hi when you pass her in the hallway. She doesn't even sit with you at lunch, though you have the same group of friends. You start to wonder if you've done something wrong, and the thought of you being the cause of her pain eats you alive. How did you end up like this?

16 /

You're popular. Incredibly popular actually, though you don't try to be. There are talks of you being voted prom king, even though you're just a sophomore. Apparently, between the ninth and tenth grades you gained a little muscle (okay, a lot) and lost all of your baby fat, and suddenly every girl in John Adams High School wants to go on a date with you. Every girl, except the one that matters. She's still hung up on that senior boy, who let her heart slip through his fingers the day he left for college. He doesn't even give her the time of day now.

She sits with a group of friends at lunch, but you can't help but notice that she's never looked so lonely in her life. You would know, you've been around for most of it. There are so many times you think about getting up in the middle of eating your turkey sandwich, walking over to her, and holding her until she's not lonely anymore. But she's over there, and you're over here, and you don't get up.

17 /

You miss her like a flower misses the sun in the winter. You haven't felt warm since that last day of summer before high school. You've gotten gusts of her heat recently, though; a "hi" when she accidentally bumped into you in the hallway; a cheer from the stands at your baseball game (it wasn't directed at you, but you made eye contact and it might as well have been); she even sat next to you in chemistry, and you gravely hope that these are signs of her coming back to you.

One night, two bottle of beer into a party, she runs through your mind. Well, she's always on your mind, but this time the image of her flashes behind your eyes like a neon sign, and you leave, despite the wishes of the red-headed girl licking your neck. You're sure she was nice and all.

You find yourself outside of her window two hours later, a tub of homemade brownies in one hand, and the other dialing her number like it was a natural reflex. She answers, and that timid "hello" almost brings tears to your eyes.

For a second you think she'll just ignore you, but then her curtains swing open, and she's standing there in her favorite pajamas (the ones with the snowmen on them; you're not surprised they still fit her), and you're sure you're dreaming. She opens the window and you step inside, and it's like stepping into a time machine back to middle school, when it was just the two of you and nothing was impossible.

It's surprisingly easy to convince her to let you stay a while, and you can't help but think that she was missing you two. You can't bear to believe otherwise. You spend the night eating all of the brownies and talking about how stupid you both were when you were 13. You tell her your plans to go to college on a baseball scholarship, and she tells you about applying to art school in the city. You glance around her room, eyeing the painting and sketches that line the walls. You've never met anyone with as much talent as her. She can paint a million words onto an 8 x 10 canvas, and leave you wanting more. She's not just artistically talented, she's also amazing at making you feel like home isn't a place, or a building, but wherever she is. That's home to you. And you've been homesick for far too long.

You're filled to the brim with things to say, but as you leave early the next morning, all that comes out is "I love you" in the weakest tone you've ever heard yourself speak in.

"I know." You're broken.

18 /

You win prom king. Darby is your queen, and you dance with her. You know she's always liked you, and she's nice, and pretty, and smells good, but she's not the blonde that's supposed to be in your arms. She's not her, nobody is her, and nobody ever will be her. She didn't even show up to prom, despite the promise she made that night with the brownies.

You find out her dad came back around. He wants to work things out, apparently, and she's finally ready to maybe let it happen. You can't interfere.

You go to college in New Jersey, just a couple hours away from home; depending on where she was. You video chat with her a couple of times; she's attending art school in the city, her dad moved into an apartment close to her, things are going really well with him. You learn about her art friends, and they seem so bright and colorful and more than you could ever be. You're happy for her, yet heartbroken for yourself, because as she sat on the other end of the call, describing her nights out on the town in vivid detail, you realize that there's no chance anymore; not like there used to be. She's really out of reach this time, and you tell her you have to go, but not before she asks you to go see the Christmas tree lighting with her new friends. You say yes without thinking, and slam your laptop shut. You wish it would've shattered so you'd have an excuse not to call her again.

You cry. You cry for the first time since your granddad died, and she held you until your river of sadness dried up and you fell asleep. But now you're alone, and there's nobody to act as a dam for your river, so you sit there flooding your dorm room.

You go to the tree lighting. You don't know why you didn't just say you had the stomach flu or something, and you think actually barfing all over the place would be better than standing in a crowd of her art friends, feeling lonelier than you've ever felt.

She approaches you with her hands tucked into her peacoat. She makes small talk about college, your baseball team, her family, how "she's so happy you came" and "she really misses you."

You really miss her too. You tell her that. You don't know if she believes you. The tree is lit, and it turns her gold. You're sent back to the summer before high school, when you believed you'd own the whole world with her someday. She's smiling so wide, craning her neck to survey the whole tree, and you can't help but note that she resembles the Christmas lights, and you're sent back to Missy Bradford's eighth grade graduation party where you kissed her for the first time, and while you're swimming in your memories, you're drowning in her lips. Your hands are in her hair and she has her arms inside of your coat. You wonder if she'll paint this moment someday.

You need for this to work this time. You're aching to be home.

19 /

The kiss was a goodbye. You haven't seen her since that night under the lights where you relived your best memories with her, and made a new one. You decide you'll be okay if that is the only thing you remember until you die.

You don't know what it's like to not be in love with her; you don't think you ever will. She's your home, you know this, but you realize it's time to pack up and move. To where? You don't know. But she deserves the chance to house someone else. She deserves to be free of the ghosts that haunt the hallways of her soul, so that a new owner can take residence in her heart.

She's taking her time erasing herself from you. Days, weeks, months go by. She's walking slowly through your heart, searching for the exit.

You wish she would run again.


End file.
